1990s - 59

The track brought to mind images of sunshine, outdoors, lazy days in the park and bright optimism. Filming in the UK in February is none of these so we had to come up with a different approach.

Recently we have been experimenting with combining live action and animation so we thought to bring this technique to the project. This allowed us to produce a video with the right atmosphere for the song.

The idea was very simple. We would produce a performance-based film, the characters in the film made from cut out paper figures, set in miniature spaces such as a garden and a bus stop (the track is based on the Â59Â bus).

To achieve this we shot the characters on a plain background. From this footage we physically printed the individual frames onto card and cut out each character and placed them in a miniature set. Once in place, the frames are recaptured on camera one frame at a time.

In a three and a half minute video there are roughly 2500 frames (at 12 FPS) so time was our biggest challenge. From start to finish the video was turned around in 3 weeks and involved a team of helpers armed with scissors. Most of whome now suffer from RSI.

The concept is very visual and the narrative loose. The video is entertaining, fun and unpretentious, much like the band. We wanted a completely lo-fi look which the band supported 100%. We were not setting out to create something that looks real so it has an endearing quality, if it is a little rough round the edges it only adds to its appeal.